I hate plants. Juniper in particular, juniper can just fuck right off and become extinct and I will dance upon the last juniper stump in the land.
It’s juniper season now in Santa Fe. I’ve taken my Claritin and it doesn’t do anything. At least I think it doesn’t, but it’s possible that it really is and the symptoms will get even worse if I stop taking it, so I’m not going to try. I could not breathe through my nose this morning, so I took some Sudafed as well. It’s the new, non-Meth-tastic kind, which doesn’t work as well to begin with. As far as I can tell the net effect of the two drugs combined is to make me feel light-headed. I’ll take benadryl tonight, but I need to be awake for classes all day today, so I can’t take it before I’m ready for bed. In the past I’ve tried Allegra (did nothing), tried Nasonex (gave me terrifying nosebleeds and did nothing else), and tried Zyrtec (did nothing). I have untouchable allergies. Sometimes Claritin gives me nosebleeds, too, but for all I know it could just be the effect of the constant, unending sneezing and sniffling.
Last night, I ended up trying to sleep sitting up in a chair, because lying down meant I could not breathe at all through my nose and made me feel like I was going to choke on disgusting slime in the back of my throat. That was not the best way to prepare myself for the week. My sinuses are so clogged up that my ears and eyes hurt.
A few years ago, when I moved out here, I thought one of the advantages to living in the desert was that there wasn’t anything to be allergic to. How wrong I was - after the juniper, there’s still grass, a few other trees, and then of course the dreaded chamisa to round the warm-weather season out. And short of ‘stay inside air-conditioned buildings as much as possible’, there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it.
How in the everloving hell do we not have some sort of reliable, effective cure for allergies? I don’t mean something to treat symptoms, I mean an “after this injection your immune system will no longer try to fucking kill you because of some fucking pollen dust” style cure. I would pay any amount of money possible for that.
I feel you, though. I hate spring so much. My major symptom is fatigue. No real sneezing, or itchy eyes, or sinus pressure. Just the never-ending desire to put my head down on my desk and become unconscious. Ever been past the point of exhaustion but not allowed to go to sleep? Makes ya kinda cranky.
I think I should change my user name to Dorothy_In_The_Poppyfield during the spring and early summer months.
I love watching the antihistamine commercials where they rattle of the symptoms they relieve. “What about CRUSHING FATIGUE?!?!?!”
I am an allergy orphan. Apparently I alone have this symptom…
Claritin and Sudafed taken together are basically what Clartin-D is. In my case it’s the same thing without my blood pressure rising alarmingly (the D component is supposed to be time-release and it’s 6x the drug amount in a Sudafed. I don’t think the time release works in my body). If you’re feeling light-headed after taking the Sudafed, next time take it with a full stomach, like immediately after lunch, and see if it helps.
niblet_head, you’re not alone. Seriously, why don’t they ever mention that hay fever drains you of energy? I’m not as bad off as you decribe most days, but then, I get the stuffy nose and sinus pressure, so I guess it evens out.
I suffered miserably from hay fever and dust allergies until I pretty much entirely gave up dairy products. Now I can quite reliably bring on a sneezing fit by eating a slice of pizza.
I know, I know. I love cheese too. But my naturopath said to me “I personally don’t care if you eat dairy or not. Just try giving it up for a week and see what happens. Then you will know if it has consequences for you, and you can choose whether to eat it or not.” So I tried it, and I’ve never felt better. YMMV.
I haven’t actually been diagnosed with allergies, but I’ve had a pretty persistent messed up nose (like needing kleenex handy always) that gets better and worse. Today it is horrible. I am considering making an appointment to see if I really have allergies or just a jacked up sinus problem. Guess that requires getting scratched by a bunch of needles?
But anyway, I feel like shit too, and at least likely feel your pain.
What use are allergies, anyway?! I mean, what differential-survival-and-reproduction advantage do they confer?! (Or are they just another instance of God’s cruel sense of humor?)
An allergy is one of the worst things ever?
Allergies are some of the worst things ever?
Allergies, although plural, is one of the singular worst things ever?
Allergies is or are the worst things ever?
I had allergy problems for years, all year long: sneezing, stuffy nose, runny nose, etc. Sometimes doctors prescribed powerful antihistamines that made me drowsy and/or dried up my nose so that it was painful.
Then one day someone suggested I try giving up dairy. “No way!” says I, “I love me some cheese and ice cream and bleu cheese and swiss and cheddar and stuffed jalapeños, etc.”
“Just try it for a few weeks,” she cajoled, and so I did, and as I went without dairy I made a mental list of all the delicious dairy products I was going to enjoy as soon as the three weeks was up.
Then all my allergy symptoms went away, and I haven’t bought any allergy medicines for the last seven years.
You may love dairy products–I sure did. But you’ll love breathing freely and not being zonked out by medicines.
Of course, there’s a thread in GQ that indicates I’m a liar or deluded and that dairy has nothing to do with mucus-production.
Hmm. The dairy thing may be worth a shot, but I’m a vegetarian and dairy (pretty much cheese only, I don’t drink cow’s milk) is one of my only two real sources of protein, the other being peanut butter. Don’t get me started on food - being locked into a college cafeteria meal plan and being a very picky vegetarian does not make for a happy combination. I might try it, though, at least while the juniper agony is on. I had to step out of class for a sneezing fit this afternoon, and now my nose is bleeding. :mad:
Has anyone here tried Singulair? Apparently it works “differently” than most other allergy meds, and I might ask the student health office to write me a prescription for it.
I have had success combining an OTC non-drowsy antihistamine and Singulair. The combo was recommended to me by my sis, who’s doc recommended the combination to her.
I’d see if you could find a way to budget for the allergy shots. They seem to make a difference for me when I can get them. (That mold I am allergic to can bloom year round, so I get no escape even in the winter.) Do you prop yourself up from the shoulders onwards when you sleep? Have you tried putting someting under the front of your bed to tilt it slightly? I can lay down, even when the Clariten seems futile, if I am propped up. Keep an eye on yourself also. If your ears stay hurty too long, or you begin to notice a “rice crispy” noise in them, go in to get checked for otitis media.
Take a shower as soon as you get home. Gets the pollen out of your hair. If you do end up using Singulair, take it at night before bed. It hits its highest efficacy about 8 hours after you take it, so will be at its most powerful when the morning pollen is being released. Change your sheets, or at least your pillowcases, as often as you can. Drink a lot of water.
Anecdote: I lived in Austin for many years. They say that Austin is one of the worst cities for hay fever. They also say that if you don’t develop hay fever after three years or so of living there, you probably never will. I never had hay fever until I went to Mexico for two months. I came back to Austin and within days had that fatigue feeling and a fever. I thought I caught something in Mexico. Nope. Allergies. Have had them ever since.
For years I thought I had numerous pollen allergies, then I started breaking out in hives and finally went to an allergist. I got allergy tested and the only thing I was actually allergic to was dust mites. The reason I reacted to pollen like I had allergies is that they were actually irritants that set off my asthma (which I didn’t know I had). The hives were not allergy related at all but die to some weird body going haywire thing (my body produced too much histamine).
So anyway, I am on Zyrtec and Singulair. Singulair for both the allergy and asthma aspects and the hives because the only way I would stop breaking out in hives was to be on two antihistamines, sometimes I’d even have to take a 3rd over the counter one (per doctor’s recommendation). There’s no avoiding dust and therefore dustmites so if I skip Zyrtec for even a day I usually start sneezing, the one time I skipped Singulair for 3 days I got pneumonia so I don’t skip that one ever. My hives problem may have finally resolved itself since I haven’t had breakthrough hives any of the times I missed one or the other of my meds. I also got an albuterol inhaler for those attacks that I thought we just bad allergy episodes but were really asthma attacks. They usually involved both sneezing and coughing.
I don’t think the Zyrtec and Singulair make me feel any worse than any of the OTC allergy meds. I take them both at bedtime so I don’t notice any drowsiness. In fact I have insomnia off and on so I don’t think they make me drowsy at all.
I highly recommend getting allergy tested to be sure what is wrong and get the right treatments.
For the record, Singulair has not made me suicidal.
No advice or recommendations, but I feel ya. There were about thirty combined sneezes between the two of us in the car on the way to work this morning. And it’s not going to get any better for the rest of the month.
Not necessarily. Read this: My House is Killing Me. My daughter was diagnosed with asthma last January so I did some research and talked to our home inspectors - they recommended Mays’ book.
By following his advice, I’ve managed to keep our use of meds way down this year - my daughter hasn’t been on Singular this time around and only needed her nebulizer (pulmicort and albuterol) about once a month, when she caught colds. I’ve only needed Advair a half dozen times.
I don’t know about juniper, though; good luck with your struggle!
I’m with ya, NinjaChick. I thought I was getting a cold, but in retrospect I think it’s allergies. I have prescription allergy medicine, but of course I didn’t bring it to New Mexico and it’s $123 for a 30 day scrip so I’m trying to get along with Claritin. Mr. Athena and I both are miserable.
I’m completely blocked up, and was snoring last night, so Mr. Athena got up out of bed and went to sleep in the spare room. While he was getting ready to get into bed, no less than 3 killer centipedes crawled out from behind things. He stayed up all night.
Between the allergies and the centipedes, we’re seriously considering heading back north. The 20 inches of snow they got in the last 24 hours seems absolutely great right now.
Did I mention that I get fucking ridiculous nosebleeds? And that sometimes these happen at inopportune times, such as the last two minutes of a class, or five AM once I’ve finally managed to fall asleep?
Here’s my advice on how not to start your day: Wake up three hours before you need to with blood streaming down your face. Sit up, pinch nose closed with tissues. Wait for bleeding to stop. Wait more. Wonder if it’s possible to bleed to death from a nosebleed. Finally stop bleeding.
Then sneeze, and repeat, or just stab yourself to death, which is probably more fun.
I just got a prescription for a nasal steroid that the nurse said should help with both the congestion and preventing nosebleeds. If that doesn’t help she’ll write a prescription for Singulair, but as A) my insurance doesn’t cover it and it’s expensive and B) I do have a slight history of depression issues, we both decided to try some other things first.
